Movie Review: The Guilt Trip

Published 4:13 pm, Friday, January 18, 2013

Movie Review: The Guilt Trip

Written by Virginia Florey

In the 1960’s a book hit the market that became a best seller. Dan Greenburg wrote it and it was called “How To Be A Jewish Mother., a very lovely training manual.” Dan Fogelman who wrote the script for The Guilt Trip must have read the book as well as having a Jewish mother because the repartee between Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen is pitch perfect. You don’t have to be of Jewish lineage to relate to the bantering and constant misunderstanding between mother and son. All mothers are alike, although Jewish moms are more often picked out to highlight their over-possessiveness.

Seth Rogen is a guy that you wonder how he ever made it to the silver screen. Not that he isn’t good - he’s great! That’s the mystery. How did a normal looking guy like him decide to try out for a career in the movies? He somehow makes any character he portrays a good guy caught in some circumstance that he doesn’t understand but he’s going to muddle through anyhow.

Born in Vancouver, Canada in 1982 to Mark and Sandy Rogen, Seth Rogen knew he wanted to be a stand-up comedian from the time he was a teen-ager. Doing an interview with Anderson Cooper on television, Seth was joined by director Judd Apatow and actor Jason Segel on the interview and Seth’s audition tape was played for the listening and viewing audience. It was his dead-pan delivery that set him apart and gave him his chance in the movies.

I would be curious to know if Barbra Streisand requested him personally for this movie or if a studio deal put them together. Barbra does a realistic mom and doesn’t wear glamorous clothes or hairdos. She looks like what she’s portraying, a mom who can’t quite believe that her son is actually asking her to go with him on a road trip that will take eight days and they will end up in San Francisco.

Seth as Andy Brewster is trying to sell a cleaning project made from all natural products and is so safe that you can actually drink it but its main purpose is for cleaning.

At the very beginning I thought Barbra Streisand was trying too hard to be a Jewish mother but about half way through the movie things seemed to jell and were more enjoyable.

Doing sale presentations across the country Andy Brewster (Seth Rogen) is striking out. By the time they get to his final demonstration he finds out he will be on television for a five minute audition with his product. His mom Joyce is watching from the sidelines and just when it seems that this demonstration is going to flop, Andy decides to follow his mom’s advice and be a little more personable and not so gung ho on the virtues of his product. It works!

There are two sub-plots. One is Joyce trying to get her son to meet up with his old girlfriend and the other sub-plot is Andy trying to match his mom up with her first love Andy Margolis. Neither pans out the way they expected. Which was a smart move on Dan Fogelman’s part. Sometimes a movie has such an artificial happy ending that you leave the theatre wishing it had been a little more realistic.

The movie received mixed reviews but I thought the script was very good and so was the acting. I wouldn’t buy a DVD of it but it is certainly worth a movie ticket.

Movie Review: The Guilt Trip

Written by Virginia Florey

In the 1960’s a book hit the market that became a best seller. Dan Greenburg wrote it and it was called “How To Be A Jewish Mother., a very lovely training manual.” Dan Fogelman who wrote the script for The Guilt Trip must have read the book as well as having a Jewish mother because the repartee between Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen is pitch perfect. You don’t have to be of Jewish lineage to relate to the bantering and constant misunderstanding between mother and son. All mothers are alike, although Jewish moms are more often picked out to highlight their over-possessiveness.

Seth Rogen is a guy that you wonder how he ever made it to the silver screen. Not that he isn’t good - he’s great! That’s the mystery. How did a normal looking guy like him decide to try out for a career in the movies? He somehow makes any character he portrays a good guy caught in some circumstance that he doesn’t understand but he’s going to muddle through anyhow.

Born in Vancouver, Canada in 1982 to Mark and Sandy Rogen, Seth Rogen knew he wanted to be a stand-up comedian from the time he was a teen-ager. Doing an interview with Anderson Cooper on television, Seth was joined by director Judd Apatow and actor Jason Segel on the interview and Seth’s audition tape was played for the listening and viewing audience. It was his dead-pan delivery that set him apart and gave him his chance in the movies.

I would be curious to know if Barbra Streisand requested him personally for this movie or if a studio deal put them together. Barbra does a realistic mom and doesn’t wear glamorous clothes or hairdos. She looks like what she’s portraying, a mom who can’t quite believe that her son is actually asking her to go with him on a road trip that will take eight days and they will end up in San Francisco.

Seth as Andy Brewster is trying to sell a cleaning project made from all natural products and is so safe that you can actually drink it but its main purpose is for cleaning.

At the very beginning I thought Barbra Streisand was trying too hard to be a Jewish mother but about half way through the movie things seemed to jell and were more enjoyable.

Doing sale presentations across the country Andy Brewster (Seth Rogen) is striking out. By the time they get to his final demonstration he finds out he will be on television for a five minute audition with his product. His mom Joyce is watching from the sidelines and just when it seems that this demonstration is going to flop, Andy decides to follow his mom’s advice and be a little more personable and not so gung ho on the virtues of his product. It works!

There are two sub-plots. One is Joyce trying to get her son to meet up with his old girlfriend and the other sub-plot is Andy trying to match his mom up with her first love Andy Margolis. Neither pans out the way they expected. Which was a smart move on Dan Fogelman’s part. Sometimes a movie has such an artificial happy ending that you leave the theatre wishing it had been a little more realistic.

The movie received mixed reviews but I thought the script was very good and so was the acting. I wouldn’t buy a DVD of it but it is certainly worth a movie ticket.

Movie Review: The Guilt Trip

Written by Virginia Florey

In the 1960’s a book hit the market that became a best seller. Dan Greenburg wrote it and it was called “How To Be A Jewish Mother., a very lovely training manual.” Dan Fogelman who wrote the script for The Guilt Trip must have read the book as well as having a Jewish mother because the repartee between Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen is pitch perfect. You don’t have to be of Jewish lineage to relate to the bantering and constant misunderstanding between mother and son. All mothers are alike, although Jewish moms are more often picked out to highlight their over-possessiveness.

Seth Rogen is a guy that you wonder how he ever made it to the silver screen. Not that he isn’t good - he’s great! That’s the mystery. How did a normal looking guy like him decide to try out for a career in the movies? He somehow makes any character he portrays a good guy caught in some circumstance that he doesn’t understand but he’s going to muddle through anyhow.

Born in Vancouver, Canada in 1982 to Mark and Sandy Rogen, Seth Rogen knew he wanted to be a stand-up comedian from the time he was a teen-ager. Doing an interview with Anderson Cooper on television, Seth was joined by director Judd Apatow and actor Jason Segel on the interview and Seth’s audition tape was played for the listening and viewing audience. It was his dead-pan delivery that set him apart and gave him his chance in the movies.

I would be curious to know if Barbra Streisand requested him personally for this movie or if a studio deal put them together. Barbra does a realistic mom and doesn’t wear glamorous clothes or hairdos. She looks like what she’s portraying, a mom who can’t quite believe that her son is actually asking her to go with him on a road trip that will take eight days and they will end up in San Francisco.

Seth as Andy Brewster is trying to sell a cleaning project made from all natural products and is so safe that you can actually drink it but its main purpose is for cleaning.

At the very beginning I thought Barbra Streisand was trying too hard to be a Jewish mother but about half way through the movie things seemed to jell and were more enjoyable.

Doing sale presentations across the country Andy Brewster (Seth Rogen) is striking out. By the time they get to his final demonstration he finds out he will be on television for a five minute audition with his product. His mom Joyce is watching from the sidelines and just when it seems that this demonstration is going to flop, Andy decides to follow his mom’s advice and be a little more personable and not so gung ho on the virtues of his product. It works!

There are two sub-plots. One is Joyce trying to get her son to meet up with his old girlfriend and the other sub-plot is Andy trying to match his mom up with her first love Andy Margolis. Neither pans out the way they expected. Which was a smart move on Dan Fogelman’s part. Sometimes a movie has such an artificial happy ending that you leave the theatre wishing it had been a little more realistic.

The movie received mixed reviews but I thought the script was very good and so was the acting. I wouldn’t buy a DVD of it but it is certainly worth a movie ticket.